


Darling

by owlaholic68



Category: Monster of the Week (Tabletop RPG), Original Work
Genre: (only at the beginning and only just a mention), Endearments, Etymology, Gentle Kissing, Hair-pulling, Immortality, M/M, Making Out, Panic Attacks, Poetry, Romantic Fluff, Swearing, This takes place when Jacques was still actually a sweetheart, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, at least a sweetie to James
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-23
Updated: 2020-05-23
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:28:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24330616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/owlaholic68/pseuds/owlaholic68
Summary: Definition: a person very dear to another; one dearly loved.
Relationships: James/Jacques, Original Male Character/Original Male Character





	Darling

**Author's Note:**

> A version of Jacques that the player characters never really got to see. Takes place in, idk, the 1950's or 60's?

James is trying to focus on the map he’s drafting of recent monster attacks.

Nearby yelling is making it too difficult. James sets aside his pen and curls up in the Org’s comfortable armchair, hands over his ears. Jacques is arguing with Sebastian, one of the Org’s newer recruits, about something – James has been trying his best not to pay attention.

Sebastian has been argumentative lately, challenging Jacques’ leadership and trying to undermine James, making cutting remarks about his advice and knowledge, sharp condescending glances in his direction reducing James to anxious avoidance of him.

This had gone on for a few weeks before it had reached a breaking point: Sebastian had actually _yelled_ at James about something. It was a private incident, thankfully, or Sebastian wouldn’t still be alive. But James _hated_ when people yelled at him, or around him, or just raising their voice in general. It had taken decades for Jacques to manage to restrain himself around James, and he still wasn’t perfect at it.

But when James had returned home from the Org in tears and barely breathing, Jacques had nearly yelled. Not at him, of course, but the frustration and fury was there.

Again, not towards James.

“D-Don’t kill him,” James had begged that night. “P-Please, Jacques, it – it will cause too much trouble and – and it was really just – just me overreacting, you know how I am-”

“James, don’t.” Jacques had sighed. Pulled James in for a hug. “Don’t.” Another sigh. “I won’t kill him. Or even seriously hurt him, because I know it will frighten you. I promise.”

“Thank – thank you.”

But now they’re yelling even more and it’s getting even louder and James buries his head in his knees-

And silence falls. No more yelling. A door slams and footsteps pound up the stairs to the ground floor, where another door slams shut.

James gives it five minutes before he stands and wipes his eyes because _of course_ he’s crying a little because he’s nothing but a pathetic cowardly crybaby, bursting into tears at the slightest problem or even just someone raising their voice…

“J-Jacques?” He knocks on his office door.

“Come in.” his voice is sharp and tense.

James cracks the door open and peeks in. Jacques is pacing, hands clenched into fists. “May I come in?”

Jacques nods. He comes over and closes the door behind James, then takes his hands and guides him to sit in Jacques’ plush office chair.

“Everything go okay?” James asks.

“Fine.” Jacques stiffly shrugs. “Sebastian will not be working with us any longer.”

“G-Good. Sit, please, J-Jacques, you’re getting me all worked up, pacing around like that.” James pats his lap.

Jacques growls but sits. Wraps his arms around James’ waist and kisses him roughly.

James only tolerates a few seconds of this before he pulls away. Feeling too fragile today for the full impatient force of his lover’s passion. “Gentle, dear.”

“Yes, James. Sorry, my darling.”

True to his word, Jacques leans in for a softer embrace. One of his hands moves to the side of James’ neck, fingers caressing the hair on his neck.

“Your hair is getting quite long,” he remarks. Kisses the corner of James’ lip, the edge of his jaw, the curve of his cheekbone. “Too bad you’ll tire of it and get it cut. I enjoy it like this.” He gently tugs on the ends, twisting them around in his fingers.

“I – I know,” is the only thing James can say, the rest of his voice straining to hold back a gasp when Jacques’ blunt fingernails lightly scratch the nape of his neck.

“Your hair like honey, your eyes like – like… oh, nevermind,” Jacques snaps.

James pulls back with a bewildered smile. Was Jacques trying to compose _poetry?_ “No, continue.”

“No, it’s nothing.” Jacques’ hot blush would suggest otherwise. “Nothing, darling, just me being fucking silly.” He tucks a too-long strand of hair behind James’ ear, a fond smile sticking on his face despite his best attempt to be embarrassed. “You addle my mind sometimes, sweetheart, and I can’t help but let myself fall for you again and again, darling, again and again…”

This affection is _exactly_ what James needs right now. He basks in it, kissing Jacques again. Slowly, with long pauses in between where Jacques sighs lovingly against his cheek.

“Darling, darling,” Jacques keeps whispering whenever his mouth is free. He kisses James’ ear. “Darling.” Lays love upon his neck. “My darling, my darling…” Puts one hand on James’ hip and gently squeezes, fingers digging in like a massage. “My _eternal_ darling, James, how I adore you…”

“You – you’re like one of those new toys where you pull a string and it repeats a word,” James jokingly comments. “Darling, darling.”

“How can I not?” Jacques settles with his head in the crook of James’ neck – a perfect position. He traces James’ collarbone with kisses, traces his back with a warm palm. “How can I not tell you how ardently I love you, how I would kill and die for you a thousand times over without question, without hesitation? You _are_ my darling, James, and it would be a shame if I did not take every opportunity to remind you that you are my everything, and _darling_ is the only word I have found that so completely expresses that.” He frowns. “Do you not like it?”

“No, no, I do like it,” James rushes to reassure. “It’s just, I don’t know, not a common word these days.”

Jacques chuckles, the low laugh rumbling against James’ chest. “Of course not. It’s old as fuck. Almost as old as the word _dear.”_

He falls silent, taking more time to appreciate James. Patiently exploring like they haven’t been lovers for decades.

“A favorite,” Jacques whispers. “Particularly beloved. One who is particularly dear to the heart. The most important.” He smiles up at James like he never smiles at anyone else, like he doesn’t know how to smile until he sees him. “The most accurate word for you.”

“You’re quite the romantic when you want to be.” James smiles because how could he not? How could he not smile during this moment of quiet bliss?

Jacques smiles again. He presses his head to a special spot on James’ neck. Completely unblemished except for one spot, a gnarly scar that has faded into an imprint. The first and only time James had ever been bitten by a vampire. The bite that turned him.

Such a scar should be a traumatic reminder, but the way Jacques pushes back the collar of James’ sweater and kisses it…it makes him shiver instead. Makes his eyes flutter.

“Talk to me some more,” he breathily requests. “You’re normally so silent. I like it when you talk, even just a little.”

“If you insist,” Jacques mumbles against his skin, moving away from the particular mark and back to safe territory – always a toss-up if James will have a bad reaction to the memory or not.

He takes James’ hand and intertwines their fingers, clasping firmly.

James sighs and would swoon into Jacques’ arms if he wasn’t already sitting down. As it is, he relaxes and leans forward, whimpering when Jacques softly kisses his hand, ghosting his breath over his knuckles and open-mouth kissing the back of his hand. Turning his arm to lavish attention upon the inside of his wrist and arm.

“It’s hard to talk when all I want to do is ravish you,” Jacques quietly admits. His voice has gotten huskier, his passionate darkness barely restrained. “It’s impossible to be patient when you’re so tempting. But I don’t give a single _fuck_ that’s it’s impossible, I’ll do it for you, darling, I’ll do anything for you to make you happy.”

“You – you _do_ make me happy.” James bites his lip. He is _not_ going to full-on moan just because Jacques has taken one of his fingers into his mouth and is lightly sucking on it. He is _not_ going to make such an embarrassing noise. He is an _adult,_ damn it.

Damn indeed, because Jacques could rival his Lust Department coworkers right now. On James' lap with one hand tenderly holding his own, his other hand caressing James’ inner thigh. His unpredictable passion calmed to burning cinders that warm but do not injure.

James could sit here forever.

“I could sit here forever.” He leans into Jacques’ touch. “Forever, J-Jacques, and I’d never want for anything because all I could ever want was – was right here with me already…”

“I would agree to forever except that…” Jacques trails away, breathing quickening because James has put a hand in _his_ hair now, twisting Jacques’ curly mass of hair around his fingers and lightly tugging and James _knows_ what that does to him, knows it because Jacques nearly screams it from the rooftops every time. “Except that my chair is not ideal for loving. And I so desperately want to love you, James, I want to bring you honey…”

James digs his fingernails into Jacques’ scalp and relishes his lover’s choked gasp. “Bring me honey?”

“From a poem,” Jacques gasps. He squeezes James’ hand. “An old poem, a rather common euphemism at the time. Honey, honey…” He blinks, becoming increasingly dazed the more James plays with his hair.

To have his lover at his mercy like this… James kisses him to give him relief from trying to form coherent thoughts.

“Man of my heart, my beloved man,” Jacques recites between kisses. “And then some line about being as sweet as honey, and then some bullshit about going into the bedroom, which is fucking useless right now because I highly doubt that we’re going to make it anywhere near a bedroom.”

James decides to tease. “Oh, I don’t know, dear, I think I could just sit here doing nothing but kissing for a few more hours, how about you?”

Demons growl, apparently, from anger or from other strong passion. Jacques’ growl is high and desperate. His eyes seek James’. “James, my darling, my _eternal_ everything, please don’t be so cruel.”

“Oh, alright, if you ask me _very_ nicely.”

“I’ll do more than ask,” Jacques continues in that same odd grumble. “I’ll beg, James dearest, I’ll get on my knees and the only thing I will do is beg and plead and – and promise _anything,_ darling.”

“I – I don’t think that will be necessary.” James squeaks when Jacques’ hand on his thigh gets more intimate. “I think I will be satisfied if you continue with the poetry. It’s unusual but I enjoy it when you’re all sweet on me like this.”

Jacques steals a few more kisses – always greedy for more. “Sweet, sweet…Man, let me do the sweetest things to you. My precious sweet, _my precious sweet,_ let me bring you honey.”

“There – there isn’t anyone else in the Org right now, is there?” James confirms.

“No, just us, darling. My sweet darling, my darling sweetheart.” Jacques turns over the words, trying out something new. Trying to fit as many endearments in the fewest of words. “Let me bring you honey, darling, let me bring you honey.”

James nods. “In that case, if we will not be disturbed, you may bring me all the honey you please right here,” he allows.

“Darling, darling,” Jacques murmurs into his neck. “Oh, I will. I will do _the sweetest things_ to you, sweetheart, my eternal darling heart. James, darling, James…”

**Author's Note:**

> Me: This campaign ended months ago, I'm over it.  
> Also me: But they *loved* each other back when Jacques wasn't being such an *asshole*!
> 
> Jacques' poetry is a reference to the last poem on this page (warning for explicit NSFW content on that article): https://culturacolectiva.com/history/love-in-ancient-egypt


End file.
